The Replacements... Who should we target?

Okay... Mario flew north for the winter (weird huh?). Brisiel, Myers, and Dreessen are going a-courtin' this weekend and next week. Worse case is NONE of them come back.

So I have two questions:
(1) Who in the free agent pool or in the draft represents the replacement at each position?

or....

(2) Is there someone on the squad now that fills the bill at each spot?

A somewhat related thought question is, what do now we do so we don't face this same ugly situation when Cushing or Duane Brown or J.J. Watt or Ben Tate each come to the end of their rookie deals and suitors with Big Bucks come a-courting them??

...and don't think they won't.

Besides... I'm tired of talking about who WON'T be here. Let's try and figure out who will or rather who should.

Okay... Mario flew north for the winter (weird huh?). Brisiel, Myers, and Dreessen are going a-courtin' this weekend and next week. Worse case is NONE of them come back.

So I have two questions:
(1) Who in the free agent pool or in the draft represents the replacement at each position?

or....

(2) Is there someone on the squad now that fills the bill at each spot?

A somewhat related thought question is, what do now we do so we don't face this same ugly situation when Cushing or Duane Brown or J.J. Watt or Ben Tate each come to the end of their rookie deals and suitors with Big Bucks come a-courting them??

...and don't think they won't.

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Ok, they got Shelly Smith that could replace Meyers right? Caldwell could replace Briesel, although not a very good replacement, still could. Could go get a guard in the draft.

Levi Brown is sitting out there, not sure how much but maybe the Texans can talk him into moving to RT, then you have the Brown Bookends. Good run blocker but wasn't a good pass blocker, at least not on the left side but possibly that can get corrected.

Texans also have Newton,could move to guard, and they have Butler that could play RT.

Personally, I don't think it is as bad as folks make it seem. Butler and Newton know the scheme, Caldwell MUST get better and we haven't really seen what Shel-Smith can do so forgive me if I am not one to be standing on some ledge ready to jump....

Wouldn't you replace Williams with Reed or do what they did last year and move Barwin where Mario was and start Reed? Braman will be a back up...

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Yes, when Mario went down Barwin shifted to WOLB and Reed bumped up to SOLB. Guess Bramin comes in as the 3rd pass rusher. That guy is an absolute ANIMAL. Anybody heard how he's recovered from that injury in the playoffs? Nothing serious was it?

I don't mind Brahman AND a draft pick coming in and competing for the rotation. Mario was going to be a luxury and the FO moved to replace him last season at both DE and OLB through the draft. Great move by the FO!

Now we're looking to replace our backups on D, no big deal.

On O nobody has actually gone yet, lets hope we get those guys back but again I don't want to overpay. You can get top quality Olinemen throughout the first 3 rounds and as stated we have guys who've been groomed in the system ready to compete in camp. Again, no biggie. Shelley Smith is the only backup without starting experience of those guys as well.

If the worst happens with the Oline guys, then I'm comfortable with a couple of draft picks and our long term backups battling it out in camp to be serviceable out of the box. Again, no need to panic in March.

@ TE we have Casey and Graham who've both waited longer than their time to take over from JD so I have little worry about that position IF Dreessen gets paid somewhere.

@ FB we have Casey possibly but I'd prefer to see someone drafted or UDFA'd for Gary to mould into everything he wants. I'm not even sure Leach was that good a fit for the system, he was just that good full stop.

@ K Rackers is what he is, which is slightly above average. I want him to have competition even if he returns.

So where's the big worry?

Everyone is ragging on our FO for seemingly not having cap space to compete in FA, how about giving them some credit for having had the foresight to develop quality backups throughout the squad so that we don't need to be held to ransom. Sure we'd like our starters back but we won't crumble without them.

Whitney mercilus from illinois is a start if he's there. Cam johnson is a little stiff,but he's pretty good. Nick perry if they wanted to move out the 1st.

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Hey, don't forget Hightower at ILB. The dude's not just an ILB. He was shuffled around in many packages in college. Probably the most versatile LB in this draft as far as where he can blitz from with success.

I would like the Texans to bring back Mark Anderson as an OLB. We need a vet to add to our OLB rotation, not another draft pick. We are already young at that position, no need to get younger this year.